Or is my mother - paying for the wedding

[Ambivalence]

I know I am about to be flamed here.

Just had a nerve wracking telephone call from my mum. She and my late father were both born in india, and although I am a british born asian, she has very traditional ideas about culture and religion.

I am one of 4 daughters (also have a younger brother), and the first one to be getting married. She has been saving for our weddings since we were born as in indian tradition ( hindu punjabi), the brides parents bear the bulk of the wedding costs.

My fiance is dutch. He has one brother and his brother and my future SIL paid for their own wedding, as is normal in holland, the parents don't contribute anything.

I go to holland with him fairly regularly, to see his family, have known them for years. The parents are divorced, and the father has died ( his new wife got everything, so DF had no inheritance from his Dad).

My mother is now saying that she thinks it is unfair that DF's family are getting away with a "free" wedding, and haven't enquired into our customs or whether anything is expected from them. In most british asian weddings nowadays the couples parents both contribute, and I have seen this with my british asian friends.

She is going to holland in september to meet DF's mum, brother, SIL and their 3 for the first time. She is now saying that she is going to speak to his mum and ask her what she expects to contribute.

I am dreading the whole thing. Actually DF's mum is well off and could afford to help out, but it wouldn't occur to her. They are also under the impression my parents must be minted as they privately educated their kids ( unheard of in holland).

This is just going to be awful. DF just doesn't "get" where my mum is coming from, doesn't understand the cultural importance and obligations for my mum of doing a big wedding, and thinks she is being ridiculous.

Has anyone else negotiated this situation?

To not drip feed, although DF is lovely, and my family all love him, he is not at all financially astute - at 46, he has a grand total of about £2K in savings, no other assets. I was brought up to be a saver, got a mortagge when I was 25 and now have a lot of equity. DF gave up a £40K job in holland to move to be with me and now is earning a pittance ( although he is going for interviews, and I am feeling confident that he will get a £30K job soon). I will always out earn him. So far he is only contributing his half of the bills (£300/ month) and food etc. he says h won't contribute to the mortageg as that is just helping me with my equity - which annoys me as he is happy to live here, rent free ( it is a v nice central london flat!).

i don't have a lot saved up, as all goes in the mortage, service charges, roof repairs etc.

Would it be unreasonable after he gets a new job to make him pay "rent" and use that money as a contribution towards his part of the wedding stuff?

i really don't know what to do, i have tried talkign to him, but he just doesn't seem to want to listen, and I am trying to keep DF and my mum both happy.

Has anyone else been in this situation ?

You say that he's not used to saving, but the problem is that actually you two were together 14 years ago when he was 32. He wasn't interested in saving, was he? He's still not interested in saving?

The thing is that at the moment the things you/he should be saving for are really important for your marriage - children and a home. If he can't be bothered to save for them, then you have a real problem on your hands.

I wonder whether you are determined to marry him simply to have children. Remember that if you do, if his current behaviour continues and you get fed up of it (very, very likely) then in a divorce it's likely he'll have custody of the children and you will have to pay him maintenance. If it's children you're after, this is a really bad way of going about it.

At 46 he's not going to change. He knows that the way you run your finances, you will always be OK financially. Many people would love to be with someone like that and if they couldn't do it themselves, would entrust their money to that person so that they are financially strong.

You want to enjoy a good retirement. He will share in your retirement funds and given he spends more, either you will lose out financially or you will have a hell of a lot of rows.

I don't think you should marry him. He doesn't share your values. You could lose your children. You could lose the quality of life you want. Please, please consider it. Have you thought of talking to a counsellor about this?

What kind of counsellor would you suggest ImperialBlether? Yes, i have thought about this, I know legally I wouldn?t have a leg to stand on if he wanted to leave me, and he?s be the primary care giver so I?d likely not get custody of the children and end up supporting him. I know about this, it is a risk I am prepared to take. I think that he hasn?t been with anyone in the time we were apart indicates h is unlikely to run off. This is why i want a pre-nup stating that I would have custody in event of a split ( which he agreed to), I just wonder if years down the line the courts would enforce that.

I don?t see us splitting up, but no-one ever does, do they?

Sorry, you want to specify that in the event of a divorce the disruption to the children be maximised by removing them from their primary care-giver ?

I'm not a specialist, but I'd be surprised if the courts enforced that.

From what you're saying, it sounds like the only way things could work between you is a traditional "one person is the main breadwinner, the other the main carer" set-up. There's nothing wrong with that - there are millions of people who are financially supported by their partners in return for taking on the lion's share of the housework and childcare, but you will need to think carefully about the financial set-up given your differing points of view (and he will probably have to make a big effort.)

Is he the kind to actually get into debt, or is he "just" a "money runs through my fingers" type of guy ?

Can I ask you whether your boyfriend smokes dope? Nothing to do with the fact he's Dutch, btw!

Thankfully he is very anti debt, doesn't have any.

He doesn't smoke dope, neither do i. We do both drink wine - but obviously would need to stop that if ttc

@Imperialblether. To be quite fair, he isn't actually in a position to save at the moment - though you're probably right that he's not that interested in it.

@Ambivalence. If my calculations are, right, at the moment he has about 1400 pounds each month and you aren't sharing finances at the moment. Is he managing to do that without overspending each month ? If so, then he is capable of only spending 1400 inclduing bills a month if he really has to and you have some basis to work on. If not, maybe not.

He says its £1200 a month, of that he gives me £300 for bills, he spends £200 on his travel card (zone 1 - 6) so he has £700 left over- which is quite a lot i think, we split groceries etc and go halves on going out/ holidays/ flights to see his family.

I don't think he's destitute

Yes , he keeps within his means - no overdraft or debt

If DF and I were organising the wedding, it would be very modest, as our financial pririties are a bigger flat and save up for kids.

I am 35.

I should probably read the whole thread, but I'd say to solve your problem, pay for your own wedding and have the modest wedding you want!

he cant be that bad with money then if he has no overdraft or debt.

p.s. we are a married couple (both 38) and also have no savings! We do have a mortgage, are paying for a car, have 2 kids and pay life insurance and dh is in a pension scheme.

Yes , maybe i am expecting too.much from him and am being g unreasonable

You can ask Xenia, but I would be astonished if the English courts enforced a pre-nup stipulating that as-yet-unborn children of a marriage should definitely not reside with their primary caregiver. In proceedings involving children the best interests of the children are paramount and will supersede some agreement the parents may have made years earlier.

In that case I'll need to make sure we never divorce. i think his mum's hands off parenting, not offering guidance or laying down expectations but just being wishy washy and saying everything is fine has done neither him nor his brother any favours. luckily his brother's wife is much more sensible and goal driven.

Yes , i would be annoyed if my kids inherited his frittering attitude to money. i am a bit with the tiger mom in that respect, being a child of first generation immigrants, i would want my children to be hard workers

Tangential, but why the hell would you stop drinking wine if you were TTC??

I thought you are supposed to stop drinking before getting pregnant?

Ok I agree he's not destitute, but by your reckoning he has - what, around £150 a week as cash. He pays for half of the groceries/nights out/holidays - realistically out of this how much do you think he should be saving?

I think you have quite unrealistic expectations to be honest. I don't think he's being U either. But as practically everyone else has said, you are both very different in your attitudes to money. I'm not sure how good a foundation that is for a future together. Certainly I don't think I could have a relationship with someone with your attitude to money. I don't mean that as an insult by the way - just that two people with such fundamentally different attitudes maybe can't be together.

Oh and a pre-nup is designed to protect the assets you bring into the marriage. It has nothing to do with custody of children you haven't even had yet.

Oh and good luck with 'i want my children to be hard workers'. That's kinda not now it works...

I want him to save 10% of his income, and cut husband cloth so he can do that, so then he has a pot of savings for big expenses.

Oops, cut his cloth

I think, OP, your biological clock is ticking and you thought 'better the devil you know'. High flyers on your career level turned out not to be very nice/ not good father prospects so you seeked this man out from the past.

It's not destitute but it's not lavish either - I'd call it modest, especially in London. I wouldn't expect someone on that kind of money in London to be able to save particularly, but maybe that's me.

But it does mean that he's capable if he needs of living off 1200 pounds a month, which is a basis to work on, since the step from "living off the 1200 pounds I have" to "saving out of my new 2000 pound salary" should be doable.

It sounds like he does want to work on it so as and when he does get a better job maybe you could have a talk about how important it is to save together and what strategies to put in place to help him not give into temptation. One thing that works for me (I'm instinctively the type to not get into debt but spend all my money) is to have a direct debit that puts a certain sum our of my salary in a saving's account that's accessible but not easily accessible (ie. I'd have to go into my bank to get hold of it.) That means I think of that money as not being available for day-to-day expenses which helps me cut my cloth.

I'm intrigued though - he's on less than a third of your salary, you say you cut all expenses except the mortgage down the middle, have I rightly understood that apart from the mortgage you spend the same amount as him each month ?

Kirsty - no, not at all, he gives me £300 each month as his half of the bills (in fact does not cover all)
i pay the mortgage, service charge and £500 misc related charges (roof repairs and others) each month.

we split groceries ( if he has bought) and going out.

I buy things for house, toiletries etc . If i buy groceries i don't ask him for a contribution ( which maybe i should)

I think, OP, your biological clock is ticking and you thought 'better the devil you know'. High flyers on your career level turned out not to be very nice/ not good father prospects so you seeked this man out from the past.

Exactly what I was thinking word for word. I don't think you mentioned if you dated anyone else while you were apart - but he didn't date anyone for 7 years!!! that would be a bit of a red flag for me.

I also think you are settling for a familiar man from the past, because you are "getting on" and have not found anything better.

Intelligent woman like you, amazed that you seem to have so little sense.

The fact that he does not want to contribute evenly, is a massive red flag. I think he is greedy. Greed can easily be disguised as a laisse fair attitude to money.

He wont contribute on an equal level because he does not want to help pay off your mortgage. He does not contribute to groceries.

Yes, he moved to London. But a 46 year old single man, in a not great and nor well paid career, did not have much to lose? A beautiful young woman, a home owner, with good career prospects and high salary, he would be an idiot not to!

And now he is in London. He does not even have to contribute to his wedding. He has a fiancee from a "minted" family, privately educated (without realizing that this is not that unusual), he really is the cat that got the cream pot! Nor does he have to contribute to his food bill, or accommodation. He pays his travel card and bills, has 700 left over every month. Yes, he has it good!

He is not expected to be an earner. He is not expected to be or do anything but being loved and adored by his "minted" young woman (with happens to be a biological time bomb).

I am afraid this man is going to cost you.

Three - five years down the line, he realizes he is even better off by divorcing you, as he will get the kids, half the assets (the home he did not want to pay into the mortgage pot for), and maybe even maintenance. And where does this leave you?

You should do an advanced search for Xenia, and read about her divorce settlement when her freeloading weasel of a husband decided he wanted her assets more than he wanted her.....

And if he does in fact turn out to be an adoring loving husband, just a spendthrift with no financial sense, you are going to end up like me. With a husband whose credit card debts you will eventually have to juggle, as you realize that the only way for the family to stay afloat is if you take over his finances completely. You read, you file his bank statements, scrutinize his credit card statements, you consolidate his credit cards into loans, just for him to build up another 10k debt within 6 monhts (!!), you transfer some of his borrowing to your card to pay off yourself, and set up direct debits from the rest, with the result that his bank account goes massively overdrawn as he uses his debit card instead. It is an ongoing battle.

I would be weary of any man insisting he hates debt with a vengeance assuring he has none.

I just dont understand how you can insist, like a petulant child that you WILL marry him.